


Anything for Family

by sunstarunicorn



Series: It's a Magical Flashpoint [16]
Category: Chronicles of Narnia - C. S. Lewis, Flashpoint (TV), Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Merlin (TV)
Genre: AU of You Think You Know Someone, Family Magic, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-22
Updated: 2017-10-20
Packaged: 2018-12-31 20:09:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 20,019
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12140163
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sunstarunicorn/pseuds/sunstarunicorn
Summary: When Greg Parker goes missing, Alanna and Lance skip school without telling Team One.  Can the two find their uncle and get him out safely?  And what happens when Team One finds out the teens are missing?  AU of You Think You Know Someone





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> spoilers for 02x16: You Think You Know Someone. Pretty much the entire episode. And I am using dialogue from the episode. This story is the sixteenth in the Magical Flashpoint series. It follows "Catch Me When I Fall".
> 
> Although all original characters belong to me, I do not own _Flashpoint_ , _Harry Potter_ , _Narnia_ , or _Merlin_.

The building had once been a busy, bustling factory, but those days were long behind it. Though it only had three floors, it loomed four stories up and had a stepped construction, the roof area decreasing with each floor. The windows were intact, despite the many years since the factory had last been in business and the building’s external vents could still be seen. On the top of the building, the massive air conditioners that had once kept the building climate controlled still lurked, rusty and disused. Behind the factory, its once impressive smokestack rose, still large and wide, even these many years later.

In the chipped and decrepit parking lot, a group of black, gleaming trucks were parked, their occupants scattering in all directions, following the orders of the tallest, a blue-eyed bald man with a severe look. “Fan out,” he ordered. “And talk to me.”

Inside the factory, in a room where the hiss of gas escaping could be heard, the hiss overlaid by the ominous ticking of a clock, a stocky man was tied to a table. He wore civilian clothing, tan pants, a faded blue, button up shirt, and boots, and blood dripped from several areas on his head and face. The most prominent was an injury to the back of his head, but the cuts on his face shone wetly in the room’s feeble light and, if he survived, he would certainly be sporting a black eye in the morning. He struggled fruitlessly against his bonds, trying desperately to survive, to get loose. His team was here, he knew it; knew that at any second, the trap he was caught in might explode and take his team, his _friends_ with it.

The broad-shouldered cop ran along his tan-skinned colleague’s side, the two of them hurrying to reach their designated wall. Over the radio, a crisp, “We need an entrance, people,” came from their bald leader.

The two stopped, discouragement running through them as they surveyed the wall. “Every window on green wall’s secure. Bars and grates,” the brunet reported.

The team female sounded off, voice even despite the fact that she was running. “Same on red. We’re on black wall now.”

The stocky man strained harder, but the gas filling the room was getting to him. He felt himself slump sideways, consciousness fading despite his best efforts. He coughed weakly, trying to clear his lungs, but the fumes were relentless. In the background, the gas hissed and the black timer on the nearby table continued its countdown.

The two snipers, blond and bald, found a door on their wall; blond tried it immediately as bald called, “Same on white.”

Blond looked up, grim. “The only way we’re getting in there is with a cutting torch.”

“Come on, people, we got to get in here,” the bald man snapped.

The bound man was completely slumped now, consciousness gone as he sprawled against the table that held him secure. Not even the ticking of the crude detonator could rouse him as it ruthlessly ticked down towards zero.


	2. Personal Business

_2 hours earlier_

Greg Parker allowed a smile as he guided his car through the morning traffic. Even with a few months of work and recovery behind him, he still wasn’t taking life – or driving – for granted; it remained a precious gift after the experience of his hearing and vision going totally haywire. In the background, the news reporter informed him rather cheerfully about the various backups in traffic and offered up the hourly weather forecast. His phone, sitting on the center console, chirped at him; he scooped it up and thumbed the power button to see the text message on the screen:

HELP  
ALLEY BTWN  
SHUTER & VIC  
-HALEY

The SRU Sergeant set his jaw and changed direction, already dialing a new number into his phone.

* * * * *

Team One was assembled in the briefing room, surveying their latest assignment. Wordy walked up to the projector screen, a panel of high-quality frosted glass with a clear border, and pointed to a particular spot on the screen. “This is the softest area-- right there.”

“He’s right,” Lou agreed from his spot at the foot of the table; the less-lethal specialist’s eyes danced as his best friend hurried up to offer his own opinion.

Spike pointed to a different spot, declaring, “Please, we start here. We’re way better covered.”

“Give it up, Patton,” Sam shot the tech down from his own spot mid-table.

Lou considered half a second, then, with a little gesture towards Wordy, said, “He’s still right.”

Spike regarded Lou with mock-horror. “ _Et tu_ , Lou? What, you got a thing for Wordy?” Without waiting for a reply, Spike steam-rolled on with, “No, no, that’s what it is.” As their team leader entered, a gray folder in hand, Spike called, “Ed, best entry point today. Best P.O.E.”

Ed took one look at the screen and remarked, “First one, obviously.”

“You got a thing for Wordy, too?” Spike demanded.

Ed leaned against the table, drawling, “Who doesn’t? But the first one is still the right P.O.E.” Brisk, he moved on, opening the folder in his hands. “Okay, guys, go day on this warrant. To recap, El Coleros President Tony Pranso-- he’s wanted for racketeering, attempted murder, the list goes on. We go in tonight.” Ed’s phone went off as he finished the recap; as he pulled the phone out, he added, “Close Quarters Battlehouse drill thirty minutes.” To the man on the other end, he said, “Hey, Boss.”

“Hey, Eddie,” Greg greeted, sounding a bit uneasy. “Something came up; I’m gonna be a little late.”

“Anything serious?”

A brief pause, as if Greg was considering what to share. Then, with a verbal shrug, Greg informed him, “Got an SOS from an old friend of mine.”

Ed straightened up. “Anything I can do?”

“SOS is from a pretty sketchy area, Eddie, but I can handle it.”

“Where?” Ed demanded, no give in his voice.

There was a hesitation, then his boss ‘fessed up. “Shuter and Victoria.”

Ed almost hissed, sketchy was putting it mildly. “Greg,” he started in protest.

“I’ll see you in an hour,” Greg replied, firm, no compromise.

The team leader gave in; he had to start trusting that Greg could handle himself again at some point. “Okay, Boss.”

“All right,” Greg agreed, before hanging up.

Ed lowered the phone, still worried. Burying his concern, he turned, calling, “Guys, change of plan. We’ll do the drill in an hour thirty.”

Spike’s reaction was predictable; with a clap, he yelled, “All right. Free time!”

Already heading out, Ed retorted, “Not likely. Outside fifteen minutes. Full gear. Let’s go. We’re doing sprints.” He hid his smirk; the stifled groans and silent glares at Spike didn’t have to be seen to be enjoyed.

* * * * *

The slate blue, four-door Chevy Impala LS pulled into the alley, its owner already courting a few second thoughts. He couldn’t see Haley anywhere in the alley, which was crowded with homeless of all types and descriptions, his gut was pinging, and his instincts were prompting the hairs on the back of his neck to rise. Wary, he parked his car and got out, shoulders tensing further as a rail-thin, scruffy junkie approached him almost immediately. He wore tattered jeans, a faded yellow shirt, a blue jacket, and a backwards facing yellow ball cap. White hair poked out from beneath the hat and the junkie had a thick layer of white fuzz, marking the start of what would probably become a scraggly beard. A snake was tattooed around the man’s neck, standing out even with the shirt and jacket on. The Sergeant let his wariness show in his stiff shoulders and set jaw; he wanted nothing to do with junkies or what they were peddling.

As the stranger spoke, Greg’s gut pinged louder; he stiffened even more, unconsciously shifting his feet to be ready for a fight. “Hey. You looking to score?”

“No.” Greg replied, brusque. “Looking for someone.”

The junkie didn’t take the hint. “Well, maybe I can help. I know everybody around here.”

That earned the pest a clipped, “No, thanks.” Greg leaned against his car, but was careful to not turn his back to the junkie, tension ratcheting up the longer the stranger hung around.

“You sure I can’t…” the junkie trailed off with a groan, clutching at his stomach. His free hand found the top of trunk, the arm trembling.

Unable to help himself, Greg asked, “You all right?”

“Oh, yeah,” the man gasped out. “Oh, I’m fine. I… Not fine.” With that, he collapsed on the trunk lid, gasping and wheezing.

Screaming instincts or not, it was Greg’s nature to help, if he could. With an internal groan, he turned and grabbed onto the junkie, holding him steady on the lid as he said, “It’s okay. You’re all right.” He pulled back a little, repeating, “It’s okay. It’s okay.” His free right hand dug his phone out as he informed the stricken man, “I’m going to call 911. I’m going to get you help.”

Thanking his training, he speed dialed 911, the operator picking up with a brisk, “911, what is your emergency?”

“My name is Sergeant Greg Parker. I’m with the SRU. There’s a possible overdose in an alley at Shuter and Victoria.”

Focused on his call and the victim, he never heard the van driving up behind him, didn’t realize until it was too late what his instincts had been trying to tell him. At the sound of an engine, he turned, only to be shoved forward by the ‘overdose victim’ into the open van door. He sprawled on the van’s floor and never got a chance to fight back as a blackjack descended on his head, knocking him out.

The man in the back of the van reached out to close the door, prompting an alarmed, “Hey. Hey!” from the white-haired junkie. As the van screeched away, he yelled, “What about me?” Nervous, he retrieved his yellow ball cap from the trunk of the blue sedan and hurried away, oblivious to three things: a old bag lady pushing a cart who’d seen the whole thing, the dropped phone on the ground with the 911 operator still on the line, and a pulsing, magical alert that pinged six near-identical phones kilometers away.


	3. Where's Greg?

The first clue Team One had that something was wrong was a shrill, rising tone from all of their phones. Ed yanked his phone from its pocket to see a sergeant chevron on the screen, his boss’s initials on top of it. The rest of his team hustled up, their own phones in hand with the same screen showing on each phone. “Ed?” Wordy questioned, sounding worried; _Ed_ was worried – and wishing he’d tried harder to talk his boss out of going to a sketchy area without backup.

“Something happened to the Boss,” Sam put in, “Our phones are linked together; Boss’s phone had to send out an alert and the parchmentwork said that the alert only goes off if the Boss gets hurt with the phone on him and he’s more than ten kilometers away from our phones.”

None of them questioned Sam; the Squib-born had been curious enough about the goblin-made phones to borrow the parchmentwork on them from their boss. Instead, the team hustled inside, only to get waved over by their dispatcher. “911 just forwarded a call to us,” he reported briskly.

“The Boss?” Ed asked.

The young constable blinked, but nodded as he started the tape. A grim Team One listened to the 911 call as Ed dialed his boss’s phone, hopeful that Sam – or the alert – was wrong. His expression darkened as the phone rang and rang and finally went to voice-mail.

Without much hope in his voice, Sam opined, “Maybe the Boss just dropped his phone.”

It was a forlorn hope, especially since Sam had been the one to insist the alert they’d gotten was bad news, and Spike shot down that hope instantly. “Then, why didn’t he pick it up again.”

Lou leaned forward a little to ask Ed, “Any answer?”

Ed shook his head. “No, no. Runs straight to voice mail.”

Wordy frowned. “Shuter and Victoria-- it’s a sketchy area.”

Before Ed could respond, Spike cut in, “Boss can take care of himself.”

“But why is he there?” Jules asked.

“SOS from a friend of his,” Ed replied. His team stared at him.

“You knew he was going there?” Sam questioned.

Ed sighed, gesturing towards the garage. “Boss told me where he was going, yeah, but he wasn’t asking for permission.” He stalked towards the garage, resisting the urge to growl under his breath. Once they got Greg back, he was putting a leash on the man.

* * * * *

Parker kept his head up and his back straight as he was shoved inside an abandoned factory. He kept his attention on the move, hearing and vision ‘up’ to catch any suspicious noise or sight. His ‘team sense’, which he still needed to control his senses, was running in the background, as always, but it didn’t help _him_ all that much to know where his team was… _he_ was the one in trouble this time. Even as his captors entered the factory behind him, he was thinking furiously, searching for a way out that _didn’t_ end with himself in a body bag.

“You’re making a mistake,” he told them, though without much hope that it would make any difference. Internally, he started trying to use his ‘team sense’ to ‘broadcast’ his own location, trying to ‘send’ his position to his team.

“Lock the door,” one of his captors ordered the other. He had a knit cap, glasses, and stubble that was growing out into a small beard and mustache. The beard and mustache were a light brown color, likely the same color as the hair hidden beneath his cap. The glasses rested on an upturned nose with thick black, plastic legs on them. His blue eyes were ice cold, hate all but rolling off him as he glared at the Sergeant. The man held a gun in his right hand, already cocked, the barrel pointing straight up, a watch glinting on his wrist. His clothing was nondescript, a gray t-shirt with a denim jacket and a silvery necklace.

As the other man locked the heavy, reinforced steel door, Greg said quietly, “I don’t know you.”

The response came from behind and was accompanied by a smack that hit the back of Parker’s head. “Shut up!”

The hit broke Greg’s concentration, his ‘team sense’ flaring at him unhappily for the demands he was making of it. Refusing to let a minor setback stop him, Greg went right back to his attempt to reach his team. “Come on,” the lead captor ordered, “Let’s go.”

The goon shoved Parker into motion again, the leader heading into the next room; the room had several rows of propane tanks, covered by plastic tarp. Greg tensed, a few things about this scenario making sense. Greg threw his eyes sideways at the tanks and said, “If this is about your business-- what you do here-- I don’t know anything about it.”

The goon, taller than his leader by several centimeters, with a full head of brown hair, angry brown eyes and a lean, aquiline face with sideburns and stubble, drawled, “It’s about the money, genius.”

Greg glanced back, confused, noting the black shirt and jacket, sharp features, and prominent Adam’s apple. “Money?”

“That’s right-- you play stupid, and then maybe we can beat some smarts into you.” The goon turned toward his leader, adding, “Isn’t that right?” He paused, but the other man said nothing. Without skipping a beat, the goon continued, “Yeah. Absolutely right.” He shoved Greg again, forcing him forward and turning him toward a set of old, barebones, steel stairs.

* * * * *

Three black trucks screamed through the streets, bulling their way through the traffic and arrowing for an alley with a blue, four-door sedan. They pulled in from both directions, blocking the sedan in as a precaution. Team One scrambled out of their trucks, scanning for any sign of their Sergeant.

Ed glanced back as he got out of the truck and ordered, “Wordy, grab those two. See if they saw anything.”

Wordy jogged in the direction of two bystanders while Spike surveyed the car and the ground around it, announcing, “No blood, no sign of a struggle.”

“Doesn’t mean there wasn’t one,” Ed countered, examining the sedan himself and scanning for his boss’s phone.

“Car’s unlocked,” Jules reported.

“What, in this neighborhood? Pop that trunk.” At Ed’s order, Spike darted around the front of the car as Ed and Sam headed for the trunk.

As the lid lifted, Jules leaned over, asking, “You got the master?”

“I got it,” Ed replied, already opening up the gun box stored in the trunk. Grim, he surveyed the nestled weapon, all but gleaming in its case. “Gun’s still in there. He wasn’t expecting trouble. Anybody seen his cell?” As Ed spoke, he closed the trunk lid, making a note to have the car locked and towed back to the station.

Jules and Spike’s replies of, “No,” overlapped, both of them looking up at their team leader.

Ed turned towards Spike, one brow going up. “Can we locate it?”

“Can if it’s on,” Spike replied.

“Let’s do it.” With that, the team raced back to their trucks and pulled away, intent on finding their boss.

* * * * *

Greg’s sensitive hearing meant that the low tone his primary captor used was wasted, since every word was audible to the Sergeant. “I got to go make a call. If he tries anything, you know what to do.”

So saying, the man gave his taller goon the gun; said goon immediately pointed the gun at Parker, the weapon held in one hand and turned sideways. Greg knew that if the gun went off, the ejected shell casing would probably hit the goon’s face, neck, or chest. Not to mention the way the goon’s gun hand was already trembling. “Mm-hmm,” the goon confirmed, eyes alight with malice and anticipation.

As Greg’s primary problem left, he called back, “No mistakes, Tyler.”

Tyler, eager to please, replied, “Don’t worry about me. I got it all together.”

Parker studied the gun and the man holding it for a quiet moment, deciding on his approach. His ‘team sense’, unused to working in ‘reverse’, was still fighting him; he had no idea if his efforts were doing any good. “First time with a gun, son?” the negotiator questioned. “Lot easier to hold steady with two hands.”

Sharp, defiant, Tyler snapped, “I’ve shot plenty of guns.”

_Yeah, sure you have._ Greg kept his thoughts off his face, only saying, “Okay. Do you mind just pointing it off a little to my left?”

Sarcasm reeked as Tyler retorted, “Sure. You think I’m stupid?”

“No,” Greg countered, “Sir, I think you’re smart. You know how easy it is for a gun to go off by mistake. Your finger twitches, and the gun goes off.” Tyler shifted his grip, finally holding the gun with both hands, though it was still aimed at the negotiator. “What would your buddy do if you made a mistake like that?” It seemed to take forever for Tyler to consider that, but he finally shifted the gun away from Greg, as requested. “Thank you, son.” _Guys, hurry up…I don’t know if you can ‘sense’ me, but I’m trying._

* * * * *

Spike’s attention was on his computer screen; he called out directions as Ed drove. “Here, just to the right. Moving slowly, probably on foot.”

As Ed turned the wheel, he saw the likely candidate for who had the phone and groaned, “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

The woman, in a worn plaid shirt, equally worn jeans, and a navy knit cap fit every bag lady stereotype Ed had ever heard of. Her face was red, her blond hair long and tangled as it fell out from under the cap and down her shoulders and she was pushing a cart full of cans, bottles, and boxes. She had stopped at the sirens and now peered at the truck; Ed was just grateful she hadn’t fled, wasting time they couldn’t afford.

He and Spike got out of the truck; walking over to her, Ed immediately demanded, “Where’s the cell phone?”

Naturally, she couldn’t just hand it over, for she gave him a raspy, indignant, “I look like I got a phone?”

Up close, he could see two blue flower pins on her cap, just above her forehead, proof that she hadn’t completely given up on her vanity. Her face was worn, wrinkled, and bore the marks of a hard drinker, but her pale blue eyes, thankfully, were clear. As impatient as Ed was, he opted to ask, “You got a name?” as Spike activated a nifty little feature their magical phones had come with.

“Everyone’s got a name,” the old woman replied, “It’s Glynnis.”

As she introduced herself, Parker’s phone responded to Spike’s with a shrill squawk, the screen lighting with the same chevron and initials they’d gotten earlier. “Well, Glynnis,” Spike remarked, pulling the phone free of her cart, “Where’d you get this?”

Glynnis opted to play dumb as she insisted, “Not mine. Never saw it before.”

Spike didn’t bother to call her on the lie, instead he coaxed, “Did you pick it up on the street?”

Ed skipped straight to, “Did you see who dropped it, Glynnis?”

Her story changed at once. “He doesn’t need it anymore.”

Only Ed’s long experience and training kept him from reacting to that. “Why is that?”

“ ‘Cause he’s dead.” Ed flinched, looking at Spike. “Someone hit him.”

_Don’t panic, don’t throttle the witness, do your job, Lane._ “Did you see who hit him?”

“No,” Glynnis admitted, “But I saw the snake man push him. I saw that.”

“What snake man, Glynnis?” Ed pressed.

“Snake,” Glynnis repeated, emphasis on the word. She gestured to her own neck as she added, “Around his neck. You know.”

Ed looked down, shoving his temper back in its box…for now. “Where’d they go?”

“Away,” she replied, “In-in a van.”

“Okay, van, good. What color?”

“Black. Nice ride.”

Ed was about to thank Glynnis when Greg’s phone rang. Spike passed it over and Ed suppressed another flinch. He knew the Toronto School of Magic’s number for their tech-born and tech-raised students. He made a snap decision and answered the call with a crisp, “Parker.”

He ignored Spike’s hiked brows as the person on the other end inquired nervously, “Mr. Parker? Are Lance and Alanna with you?”

Ed stiffened with alarm. “No…aren’t they in class?” Spike’s eyes bugged out as he realized they had another problem…a _big_ one.

“They both left their first period classes complaining of illness,” the lady on the phone informed Ed. “But they never arrived at the infirmary and they aren’t in their second period classes.”

“Well, have you searched the school?” Ed demanded, managing to sound like a worried parent with no trouble whatsoever.

The lady clearly cringed, for her, “No, sir,” was soft and meek.

“Keep me informed,” Ed snapped. “If they turn up, I’ll let you know.” Not waiting for a reply, he clicked the phone off. Spike and Glynnis were both staring at him, Spike with mounting terror and Glynnis mildly curious. Ed clamped down on his temper again, thanked Glynnis and hauled Spike back to the truck where he announced grimly, “Team, we’ve got another problem. The kids are missing.”

* * * * *

As the as-yet-unnamed leader came back, Tyler burst out with, “Come on, man, let’s do this.”

To a wary Greg’s surprise, the man replied, “We’re waiting for somebody.”

“What?” Tyler demanded, “This isn’t a party, man. Come on.”

As Parker wasn’t interested in whoever the new arrival would be and Plan Alpha, trying to ‘reverse’ his ‘team sense’, was failing miserably, he moved onto Plan Beta: blunt, tactless truth. “Okay, just so we’re clear,” he announced, ignoring the twin glares, “You two have kidnapped, assaulted, and are now unlawfully detaining a police officer.”

“Hey, shut up,” the leader snapped, unsurprised.

In contrast, Tyler looked stunned, flummoxed, and a smidge terrified. “You’re a cop? This guy’s a cop?” he hissed at his boss.

“Yeah,” the leader admitted, “Just-- it doesn’t matter who he is, okay?”

It clearly mattered to Tyler, who protested, “You said that he owed you money. You said…”

“He lied to you, Tyler?” Greg interjected, seizing his chance. Tyler lowered his weapon a moment, then snapped it back up and onto Greg. As Greg was forced back to and up a set of stairs, he added, “All the risks you’re taking and he lied to you?”

“Yo, man,” Tyler pleaded with his boss.

His boss was unconcerned with Greg’s negotiating, only saying, “Tyler, Tyler. Do I take good care of you?”

Though uncertain, Tyler replied, “Yeah.”

“Then just trust me. Do what I say, and everything will be okay.”

As Greg climbed the stairs, he interjected again. “You think that, Tyler? You think kidnapping a cop is okay?”

The boss lost his temper, screaming, “Shut up!” as he whirled back towards his hostage.

Tyler’s attention was on his boss and off Greg for a split second, the gun lowering away from its target. Greg kicked him, sending him down the stairs. But he’d miscalculated; as he shifted towards Tyler’s boss, the young man charged at him, going low and under the swing of Greg’s bound wrists. The two flew off the catwalk and onto the concrete below. Parker hit hard, knocked out, his ‘team sense’ down as well.

Tyler scrambled up, retrieving the gun and hurrying over to his boss and their captive. “You killed him,” Tyler breathed, staring at the cop, who lay with limbs askew and eyes open.

“No, I didn’t,” the other replied, panting and standing up. His glasses were gone and he stared down at his captive with leashed hate in his eyes. “Not yet.”


	4. Who's Haley?

Tyler stalked toward the heavy front door as someone knocked at it. Impatiently, he yanked each lock open, finally opening the door to see a pretty young woman on the other side. She had long, dark brown hair that fell down her back, brushed back to set off her face and dangling earrings. Her face was rounded, her features petite and, at the edges, she had a trace of wear from her days as a drug user. She wore a pretty, light purple blouse and new jeans; her purse was slung over her shoulder as she demanded, “Where’s Kevin?”

“What the heck are you doing here?” Tyler demanded right back.

“Kevin called me,” the woman replied, giving him a glare.

With a shrug, Tyler let her in, locking the door behind her. Her brow creased as she looked around the factory, a wariness entering her eyes. “What the heck is going on, Tyler?”

Tyler didn’t answer directly, instead saying “Come on,” and leading her across the floor.

From behind him, she asked, “So, you and Kev hanging again?”

“Yeah,” he replied, voice rising, “We’re tight. What do you want from me?”

With that same disdain he remembered, she snipped, “From you, Tyler? Believe me, nothing.”

Casual, as they turned a corner, he questioned, “So, you guys are hooking up again?”

“What business is it of yours?” she snapped, as he turned and pushed the wooden door to their makeshift cell open. He surveyed the fallen cop with satisfaction, pleased to see one of _them_ brought down like this. The woman behind him didn’t agree, he heard her sharp intake of breath and she cried, “Oh, my Gawd. Greg,” as she rushed past him towards the cop.

* * * * *

It was a grim Team One who circled up, the news of the kids missing another blow on top of their already missing Sergeant. Spike, sticking to what they _could_ do, worked Greg’s phone, reporting, “About an hour ago, Boss got this.”

As he spoke, he brought up a text message and passed the phone to Ed. Ed surveyed the message, the SOS Greg had referred to. “ ‘Help.’ ‘Haley.’ ”

“Haley?” Wordy demanded, actually swiping the phone to see for himself.

“Wordy?” Jules questioned.

Wordy studied the message a moment, a sinking look on his face. “If it’s the same Haley, I’ve met her.”

“You’ve met her?” came the demand from Spike and Ed simultaneously.

“Yeah, she’s young, seventeen or eighteen; the kids know her too. The day Danny Rangford…” Wordy twitched awkwardly at the mention of the man, then moved on. “Well, anyway, I took the kids home with me that day, but we had to stop at Sarge’s place first.”

“She was there?” Sam asked, eyebrows going up.

“Yeah,” Wordy confirmed. “Seemed like a nice girl, maybe a couple rough patches. Said she’d known Sarge since she was a little kid _and_ she was looking for Sarge ‘cause she’d broken up with her boyfriend…uh, um…” The brunet trailed off, searching his memory. “Kevin, I think his name was Kevin.”

“Why?” Jules questioned, tilting her head.

Wordy shrugged. “I got the feeling he wasn’t a fan of Sarge’s. She said he’d tried to make her stop visiting Sarge and the kids.”

“Deal breaker,” Lou observed.

With a tiny smirk, Wordy added, “That’s what I said.”

“Okay,” Ed mused, “Do you know her last name?”

Wordy shook his head. “Sorry, Ed. It was maybe five, ten minutes. Lance got Haley a soda, packed their stuff; ‘Lanna did most of the talking with Haley. I hung out until Lance was done, then we walked her down and that was it.”

Disappointing, but they were probably on the right track, with the right Haley. Jules switched her attention over to Spike. “Spike, are there any other calls or messages from Haley?”

“Nothing,” Spike replied glumly.

Taking over again, Ed reclaimed Greg’s phone from Wordy, saying, “All right, we need to check phone records, texts, anywhere this woman got a hold of him.”

“Most of that takes time,” Spike pointed out.

“E-mails-- can you get into those?”

Spike was nodding. “Okay, I can do that, but I have to access it remotely. He’s only got, like, a week’s worth on his phone.”

“Okay, do it.” As Spike hurried towards the truck, Ed reeled out the situation and his orders while moving towards the trucks, his team following. “All right, it’s been thirty minutes since the 911 call. They got a big head start on us. We got a lot of ground to cover. Wordy, get on the horn-- every cop. I don’t care if they’re a meter maid, behind a desk, on vacation. Everybody on the street looking for the Boss _now_. And get the kids’ descriptions out there too.”

* * * * *

Shocked, incredulous, Tyler asked, “You know this guy?”

The brunette didn’t answer, just turned and demanded, “Go get Kevin.”

“I have to watch the cop.”

“Now!”

Tyler’s face twisted in disgust and he spat, “Fine. You watch him.”

As he left, closing the door behind him, the young woman hurried to the fallen man’s side, letting her purse drop to the floor without a second thought. “Greg. Greg, look at me. Are you okay?”

She hadn’t realized he was awake, but he was already saying, “Haley, you have to get out of here. You have to get out of here, get out. What are you doing here?”

Careful, she helped him sit up, almost crying as his face twisted in pain. Leave him behind? Never, not a chance. “What are _you doing here?_ ” she replied, tears in her voice.

His head sank back against the wall, a pained expression on his face and a curious concentration, as if he was trying to do two things at once, despite the blood on his head and the flex cuffs around his wrists and ankles. “I got a message from you saying that you were in trouble.”

“I never sent anything,” Haley told him, fear clenching her anew as she pieced together who _must_ have set this in motion.

“Okay.”

“Come on, we got to get you out of here,” Haley insisted, trying to work her fingers under the flex cuffs on her friend’s wrists.

“Okay, we need a knife.” Greg was starting to sound a little better, but she could tell he was still affected by whatever had knocked him out and left more than just the bloody injury on the back of his head. “You need something sharp. You need a pin or a needle or something.”

Haley looked around the room frantically, running through the contents of her purse in her head. “There’s nothing,” she cried.

Greg, though, as always, knew what to do. “Okay. Use your earrings.” As he spoke, he reached forward with both hands, indicating them.

Even as she reached up to take one of them off, she questioned, “Huh?”

“The point of your earrings,” he coached.

“Okay.” She fit the point of the earring in the little gap where the flex cuffs tightened.

“All right, and I’m gonna pull and slide it in there.”

“Yeah.” They were coming, the cuffs were coming loose.

“Really… Okay, good.” The gap widened as she worked the cuffs off. Once his hands were free, he brought one up to his head, the other bracing him against the wall. Then he asked what she was afraid to answer. “I’m really trying to understand what’s going on here, Haley.”

Grim, more than a little angry now, she told him, “It’s Kevin.”

“It’s Kevin?”

She was looking down, working at the ankle cuffs, and avoiding Greg’s eyes, but at his gentle question, she looked up again. “He’s hated you ever since we broke up.”

Understanding now, he clarified, “Your ex-boyfriend Kevin?” She nodded, watching as her friend absorbed the information. “Okay. Let’s go.”

She stood, reaching down to grab his hands. As she began to haul the larger man up, Greg muttered, “Let’s go. Easy, easy, easy, easy.” As he came up off the floor, he managed to get his feet under him enough to help more, pushing up as she kept hauling. “All right, up, up, up, up, up.”

_I’ll get you out of here, Greg. I promise._

* * * * *

The three trucks were back on the road, searching, hunting for any sign of their boss, Haley, or the mysterious ‘snake man’. Spike was using both Wordy’s info and his boss’s e-mails to track down Haley. “Ed, got her,” he sang out.

“Go.”

“Mystery woman is Haley Brynne. Just like you thought, Wordy, she’s eighteen.”

“Go on,” Ed urged.

“Correspondence goes way back, so, yeah, they definitely have a history. Must be a good one to introduce the kids to her.”

“You read the e-mails?” Ed asked.

“No, no, just to confirm the name. But so far, I got nothing on the girl.” As if to dispute the point, Spike’s laptop beeped at him. “Hold on.” Spike’s eyes widened as he read the news article he’d found. “We got a news article, ten years ago. Homicide served a warrant on a suspect, Randy Teller. Subject opened fire on police.” Leaning closer, Spike read from the article, “Tessy Brynne among those killed in the cross fire. Ranking officer on the scene, Detective Greg Parker.”

“Detective?” Sam questioned.

“Yeah,” Ed confirmed, “Back when he was in Homicide. Time fits.”

* * * * *

Kevin stalked towards the room where Haley and the cop were. Once she knew the truth, once he told her, she wouldn’t be so quick to dismiss him anymore. Tyler followed, an annoying terrier that he put up with because the taller man was easy to manipulate. “What the heck are you doing down there?” Tyler demanded.

“Just getting the lab ready,” Kevin replied, casual. Then they turned into the room…to find it empty. No Haley, no cop. Kevin swept out, searching the halls already. “I told you to watch him,” the angry man snapped.

Tyler wasn’t impressed. “Yeah, and then you called her. What the heck is that about?”

“We find them right now!” Kevin snarled, ignoring the question. As they stalked off, he heard Tyler draw his gun. _And when we find them, I’ll make everything right._

* * * * *

“Open the file,” Ed ordered.

Spike’s fingers flew, but the screen that came up wasn’t what he – they – wanted. “No, I can’t. It’s sealed.”

“What? Why?”

Spike rolled his eyes. “I don’t know. It’s sealed.”

Wordy stepped in, though his worry made him less than tactful. “If it’s sealed, we need a court order. Could take days.”

Ed’s temper flared. “We don’t have days.”

“Ed, we all know that,” Jules soothed.

There was a moment of silence. “Okay. All right, see if you can get one of those lawyers to unseal it-- for now.”

“Copy,” Spike acknowledged, his gaze resting on the screen again. Somehow, he had a feeling they needed to know what had happened that night…sooner rather than later.


	5. Meth Labs and Memories

Greg concealed a wince as he moved, staying right by Haley. Her being here was almost as bad as if one – or both – of the kids were here. His ‘team sense’ thrummed unhappily at him, he’d gone right back to trying to ‘reverse’ it as soon as he’d woken up. His hearing and vision, already ‘up’, were threatening to skid out of control, thrown out of true by his unorthodox use of his ‘team sense’. “It’s like a fortress,” the negotiator murmured as they walked through yet another corridor with no windows – or barred windows – and no exit. He kept one hand close to or on Haley’s shoulder as she walked, anchoring himself even with his senses skidding.

As they turned another corner, Haley spotted something and darted away with a triumphant, “Here.”

Greg, following as close as he could, saw what she didn’t and ordered, “Haley, stop!” Confused, Haley stopped, her hands against the doors. Wary, she pulled back, looking up at him as he limped forward, repeating, “Stop. Stop.” Once by the doors, he examined the crude device attached to the door. A tin can was mounted on one door, with a wire stretched across to the other door. Open the door and the makeshift grenade would go off. “Place like this, lots of surprises,” Greg observed.

Haley’s expression turned confused. “What do you mean a ‘place like this’?”

Greg hiked a brow as he looked at her; she’d been a drug user and she didn’t know what this place was? “You don’t know?”

“I’ve never been here. I haven’t seen Kevin in months.”

With a faint laugh, Greg turned away from the doors, ushering Haley with him as he told her, “It’s a meth lab, Haley. See the propane tanks when you came in? All the brass turned blue?” At the fork, he paused, added, “Smell that?”

“I thought it was cats.”

Greg managed another breathy laugh as they continued, going around the next corner. Then he stiffened, his hearing catching every word as Kevin, in the distance, said, “Doors are all closed. Maybe down here.”

He looked to Haley, realizing that she’d heard Kevin too; she was stiff with fear. Looking up, he spotted a staircase and pointed to it. “Up on the roof,” he hissed. “There’s got to be a door there.” The pair hurried around, Greg pushing Haley in front so she could, unknowingly, guide him. “Go on. Go, go, go, go.”

Unfortunately, the sound they made as they headed upwards drew attention; Kevin and Tyler paused as they heard the clatter of feet up the stairs. Then they raced after their prey.

* * * * *

Spike, still working to increase the information they had available, called out, “I’ve got a last known on Haley. It’s a group home in Riverdale. And I’ve got the social worker on line two.”

“Okay, good,” Ed replied. “I’ll talk to her. And, Spike, get me those e-mails.”

“Copy,” Spike agreed.

Ed shifted his phone up, tapping the command that hooked the phone into the team’s headsets. The social worker would only be able to hear him, but the whole team would hear her. “Ma’am, this is Ed Lane with the Strategic Response Unit. I understand a,” he double-checked the name, “Haley Brynne lives with you?”

“Yes,” the woman acknowledged.

“Did you know she has a friendship with Sergeant Greg Parker?”

“Yes, of course.”

“Did you know they were corresponding regularly?” Ed pressed.

The woman laughed softly. “Sometimes it seems like they talk more than the rest of my kids put together.”

Ed blinked, both surprised and not by that information. Clarifying, he asked, “So you’re saying you knew about the two of them? The e-mails?”

In the background, it sounded like the woman was working even as she talked. “The e-mails, the visits, the phone calls. Haley practically worshipped him. I guess it’s not surprising, considering what he did for her.”

One brow quirked up. “What do you know about that?”

A verbal shrug. “Just what Haley told me. She was eight. Her mother was an addict. They lived in a flophouse. The cops came by with a warrant for her boyfriend one night, but I guess he didn’t feel like cooperating.”

As she spoke, Ed winced at the picture she was painting. An eight-year-old girl, in the middle of a shootout, hiding under her bed as her world was torn apart.

“All Haley said she could remember was the sounds…”

* * * * *

_The eight-year-old girl was in her room, tucked under her covers. She could hear noise coming from downstairs, but she remained in her bed, gazing at the princess poster her mother had given her. A tall, blonde princess with a flower headband, a pearl necklace, and a beautiful blue dress posed in the poster’s foreground. Pink butterflies danced around her and a castle with hearts all over it stood in the background. In the midst of the little girl’s unhappy life, the poster was her one link to a world that was better, pretty, and full of love._

_From downstairs, her mother’s voice lifted in a piercing shriek of, “Get out of our house! Get away!”_

_A yell of “Police!” rose up the stairs, heralding her mother’s approach as the woman scrambled into the doorway of her daughter’s bedroom, brown hair flying and a snub-nosed revolver in her hand._

_With a sharp gesture, Tessy Brynne cried, “Baby, get under the bed.”_

_“Got a warrant!” echoed in the background as Haley shifted, scrambling out of bed._

_“Get under the bed,” Tessy repeated, turning back to look down the stairs. Haley dropped to the ground and shuffled under her bed, peering out at her mother and listening to the yells from below._

_“Drop it now!”_

_Gunshots rang out, overlaid with Tessy’s desperate, “Oh, no, they’re coming.” Tessy started to turn again, then her stiletto heels went out from under her, sending the woman tumbling to the ground, her gun flying out of her hand and sliding towards Haley. Tessy looked at her daughter, frantic. “Get it. Baby, get the gun.”_

_Haley peered out from her hiding place as a loud gunshot rang out and her mother slumped._

“She was eight. I can’t imagine.”

_The poster on the opposite wall bore the marks of the tragedy, blood spattered across it, marring the beautiful princess and her castle of hearts. Footsteps sounded as a man entered the room, crossing to where Haley still hid under her bed. The man knelt, pulling up the bed skirt and meeting the terrified girl’s eyes with his own gentle brown ones. “It’s okay,” he soothed. He glanced down at Tessy Brynne and the gun that lay near her, reached out and secured the weapon. Shifting back to Haley, he told her, “I got you.”_

* * * * *

“He covered her up. Wouldn’t let her out of his sight till Children’s Aid showed up. A lot of cops wouldn’t have done that, but he did.”

“Yeah,” Ed breathed, “That sounds like Greg.”

“Later, Haley had some drug problems of her own. But Greg would come by, just talk to her; after a while he’d bring his two kids along, too. They really hit it off with Haley, wouldn’t give up on her any more than Greg would.” Ed swallowed a lump at that…just like the kids hadn’t given up on their uncle months earlier. There was a soft giggle. “A few times, they talked Haley and Greg into a day out. A water park, an ice-skating rink, anything that would keep Haley away from drugs.”

Curious, Ed asked, “Did that work?”

“Not always,” the social worker admitted, “But it did give Haley something to focus on besides the drugs and Kevin.” A pause. “Once she broke up with Kevin, she got back on track.”

Ed’s ears pricked; Kevin…the same name Wordy had mentioned. “Kevin who?”

“Persheski. Long line of meth heads. She met him in the program. And he was no fan of Greg’s.”

With a brisk, “Thanks for your help,” Ed hung up. “Any word on the kids?” he had to ask.

“Nothing,” Wordy reported. “They’re keeping an eye out, but if the kids are with Sarge…”

“I hear you,” Ed rasped.

* * * * *

Haley scrambled up the stairs, aware of Greg’s hand resting ever so lightly on her back. It worried her that he needed the contact, she hadn’t missed how he still looked off balance and more than a bit dazed. As long as he was touching her, he didn’t seem to have a problem, but something was definitely wrong with him. Once she got him out of here, she was taking him _straight_ to the hospital.

As they reached the top floor, she looked up at the windows: barred, grated, and most of them were high up, too high to reach. No exit there, so she started off along the floor, Greg at her side and just a little behind. She noticed that he shook his head a little, as if trying to clear up his muddled thinking.

“What are you doing here, Haley?” he questioned. “I thought you were done with Kevin. We talked about that.”

“I was. I am,” Haley replied, firm, though her voice trembled with the fear and stress she was under. “But he called. He said he needed help.”

“You bought it?”

She couldn’t help it. “Didn’t you?” Greg didn’t respond, other than a conciliatory head tilt in her direction. They walked in silence until they got closer to the door on the far side of the floor. Haley felt Greg stiffen even before she could really see the door, spotting what she only saw a few steps later. Another rigged can, wired to the door, blocking their exit.

“Okay.” How could he sound so calm? “Another grenade. He’s a smart kid.” Haley tried to stifle her tears, she really did, but they slipped out anyway. Greg turned, comforting her just as he had when she was a kid, just as he always did. “Hey. Oh, no, no, no. Oh, we’re going to be okay. I promise. All right?” But he couldn’t promise…he couldn’t. Kevin hated him, loathed him with a passion, one reason she had never, never, _ever_ told Kevin about the kids. Turning, Greg indicated the windows and told her, “See those windows? We’re gonna pull on one of the bars and we’re gonna get out of here.”

There was no doubt in his voice, no hint of giving up and Haley chose, as always, to trust him, believe in him. They moved back towards the lower windows and then Greg’s plan went up in smoke as Kevin and Tyler appeared, barging through the doorway and onto the floor towards them. Kevin’s eyes were focused on her, he actually tried to preen his knit cap as he walked towards her, then he spread his arms in welcome. Tyler followed with a gun, drawn and aimed at Greg; Greg who had already put himself between Haley and his captors, physically between her and danger.

“Haley,” Kevin greeted her, as if nothing was wrong, as if he hadn’t _kidnapped and assaulted_ her _friend_. “You came.”

* * * * *

Spike surveyed the record, his grin vicious and only technically a grin. “Guys, I think I got something. Came up blank on Kevin Persheski, and if he’s Haley’s age, a juvie record will come up sealed, too. But group home lady said he comes from a long line of meth heads, so I cross-checked.” He pulled up the picture, sending it out to his teammates’ phones. “And this is Joe Persheski. Multiple convictions, possession with intent to distribute, assault, assault with a deadly weapon. And around his neck, the tattoo the old woman described.”

“Snake man,” Ed breathed, examining the photo with leashed fury. “Nice work, Spike. Call Drug Squad, see if you can get a last known address.”

“Copy that.”

* * * * *

Greg sucked in a breath, trying harder than ever to ‘broadcast’ his position, regardless of the toll it took on his control of vision and hearing. He was pretty sure that if that gun went off, it would take him down even if the bullet never touched him. He stayed between Haley and the advancing duo, determined to protect her to the last. “Hey, just take it easy, son.” To his protectee, he muttered, “Haley, you stay behind me.”

The two men kept advancing as Haley called out, “Kevin, what are you doing?” Kevin still had his hands spread while Tyler had that gun aimed at Greg, but better him than Haley.

“It’s okay, Hale, okay?” Waving her over, Kevin ordered, “Just come here.” Greg shifted, keeping himself as much between Haley and the men as possible. Haley stayed put, not budging. “Come here,” Kevin repeated, sounding a little desperate. Again, Haley didn’t move.

Greg decided to get his attention off of Haley, come what may. “We can talk this out, whatever the problem is…”

“Shut up!” Kevin roared, snatching the gun away from Tyler and aiming right between Greg’s eyes.

Haley surged forward instinctively, forcing Greg to catch her and hold her back. “Haley, it’s okay. Stop. Stop.”

“Shut up,” Kevin seethed as Greg maneuvered Haley behind him again. He was lucky Kevin hadn’t screamed or he probably would have fallen, as it was, he’d flinched violently at Kevin’s raised voice.

“Everything’s going to be okay as long as we listen to each other. All right?” He didn’t believe the words even as he spoke them, but negotiating was about the only card he had left to play. His team might or might not be receiving his ‘broadcast’, they might or might not be searching for him…either way, he was running out of time and he knew it.

“If you think that Greg is the reason we broke up, you’re wrong,” Haley half-spat, half-cried from her position behind the Sergeant. Her hands were on his back, providing a much needed physical grounding that the negotiator clung to.

“No, this isn’t about us breaking up,” Kevin claimed. Greg’s eyes narrowed; he suspected it very much _was_ about Kevin trying to get Haley back and keep her all to himself, possessive as only an abuser can be. “This is about him telling you the truth, Hale. About who really killed your ma.” Greg’s eyes went hard, harder than they had in a very long time. The past… _his_ past was coming back to haunt him…his decision regarding that case – _Haley’s_ case – might yet cost him everything.


	6. Not the Only One Who Needs You

“Don’t you want to know, Hale?” Kevin asked, gun unwavering despite the one-handed grip he had on the weapon. “Who really killed your ma?”

Greg was still in front of Haley, but he could feel her trembling as she accused, “You’re high.”

Kevin shook his head as he countered, “No. No, I’m not.”

The negotiator didn’t have to guess what Kevin believed about that night…it was an easy conclusion to draw, if very, very wrong. It meant whatever he said was likely to be scorned and disbelieved, but he still didn’t have a single card other than negotiating to play. No gun, no armor, no backup. “Kevin, but you are in trouble. I can see that and Haley can see that. She cares about you. She cares about you, and whoever she cares about, I care about, too.”

The scorn, the disgust was blatant. “Yeah, yeah,” Kevin sneered, “You care.” His attention switched to Haley. “Listen. And as soon as you know it, it’s all gonna be over, okay?” As he spoke, he reached out his free hand to give a new pair of flex cuffs to Tyler.

“Know what?” Haley asked as Tyler approached with the cuffs, staying out of his boss’s line of fire. “No, Kevin, please,” Haley begged, “Don’t do this…”

“It’s okay. It’s okay,” Greg reassured her, letting Tyler bind him again. Internally, he kept pushing at his ‘team sense’, determined not to give up. Yes, he knew where this scenario was heading, but he was going to do everything in his power to stall and delay, to give his team a chance to reach him.

“It’s for his own sake!” Kevin claimed loudly. _Yeah, right._ “ ‘Cause I swear if he comes at me one more time, I’m gonna kill him.” _I_ didn’t _come at you, you punk._

“You don’t want to do that, son.” That wasn’t negotiating, it was a cop warning a suspect. He knew, _knew_ , that Kevin did, indeed, want to kill him, but if Kevin did, he’d destroy his own life, Tyler’s, _Haley’s_.

Kevin took his statement as a challenge, a challenge that he had to respond to, or risk losing face. Advancing slowly, the gun shaking in both fury and Kevin’s inability to hold it steady one-handed for long, Kevin growled, “What do I want to do? Hmm? Haley always said you can look in someone’s eyes and you can tell them what’s going on.” Fanciful and not exactly true…he wasn’t that good, even if sometimes his team thought he was. “So you tell me. What do I want to do?”

Parker held his silence, eyeing the gun that wavered and shook, but never budged from aiming at his forehead. Soon, very soon…he’d have to decide.

* * * * *

Three trucks swept down the city’s streets, silent and deadly. Their sirens were off, their lights as well; stealth and speed the order of the operation.

In a quiet neighborhood, a ramshackle house stood, with windows blocked and trash strewn all over, both inside and out. A man slept on the house’s single couch as his compatriots smoked, drank, and played at a nearby table. One of them, a goon in a white tank who was marginally more alert, looked up at a noise from outside the house. Picking up his gun, he walked to the front area to peer through the window.

A ram came through the front door, followed by three furious cops yelling orders. Wordy, Spike, and Lou charged in, weapons raised and immediately aiming at the tank top goon. Lou took him down, slamming him to the ground with no regard for the niceties. Spike turned, weapon sweeping towards the other drug addicts, ordering, “Everybody down on the ground!”

An equally furious Wordy backed him up, yelling, “Get down! Get down! Get down!”

Most of the addicts, terrified of the infuriated officers, obeyed, but one, a man with a yellow ball cap, bolted off the couch and raced for the back door.

“Stay where you are!” Spike yelled, tracking the man with his weapon.

The man halted, but only because Sam’s submachine gun appeared less than a meter from his nose. The blond sniper backed his target up until the man with the ball cap found himself back on the couch, staring up at a frigidly cold, outraged cop.

“Stay down,” the team leader, who’d followed Sam in the back entrance, ordered the junkies. Beside him, Jules began helping her teammates secure their ‘catch’ of addicts.

“Ed,” Sam called, his focus on his captive, who had a very distinctive tattoo on his neck.

Ed turned, surveyed the man for half a second, then crossed to Joe Persheski, yanked him up by his collar and hissed, “Where is he?”

Persheski didn’t respond, just made a grunt.

Ed shook his captive a little, then, giving him a deadly look, asked again, “Where is he?”

* * * * *

The room was filled with makeshift lab equipment, bottles of chemicals, cluttered tables, junk, and, naturally, graffiti on the walls. Propane tanks, still mostly clean and white, sat on the ground next to a sturdy table piled with junk and meth making materials. Parker, shoved in first by Tyler, had a minor reason to be grateful for the shoving. Without the physical contact, he would have given a splendid performance of his haywire senses at their worst. His ‘team sense’ was whining, straining to do what he was beginning to suspect it had never been meant to do.

With not much left to lose at the moment, the negotiator decided to go with sarcasm as he remarked, “Oh, you’ve been making meth again, Kevin? Is that what you want Haley to know?”

Kevin himself was putting on a wonderful act of being calm, in control, and caring towards Haley. He pointedly ignored Greg’s crack, turning towards Haley and saying, almost gently, “I want you to know who he really is.”

“I know who he is,” Haley countered, stiff with anger at her ex-boyfriend’s actions.

Trying to delay the inevitable, Greg interjected, “Hey, man. If you got a beef with me, take it up with me. Haley doesn’t have to be a part of it.”

In control now, Kevin ordered coolly, “Put him on the ground. Tie him to the table.”

Tyler shoved Greg down to the ground; the negotiator ended up sprawled on his side. As the uncaring goon stepped over Greg and began binding him to the table leg, Kevin himself turned back to Haley as she asked, “Why are you doing this?”

Kevin approached her, soft, caring; Greg mentally seethed at the act the man was putting on. “Just…tell me what you think happened.”

They both knew what Haley’s response would be and she gave it without hesitation, the story she’d been told, that _Greg_ had told her. “I know what happened. There was a party. My mom was high, everyone was.” Stifled sorrow entered the girl’s voice. “She had a gun. When the cops came in, everyone started shooting at them. And my mom got hit by a bullet from one of the junkie’s guns.”

All through her explanation and Greg being tied to the heavy table, Kevin had nodded, taking in each word as if he was a teacher listening to a student give a memorized, but wrong, answer. Greg himself stiffened. Ironically, not a single thing Haley had said _was_ wrong; even then, he hadn’t been into lying unless it was absolutely necessary.

“How do you know that?” Kevin pressed. “Who told you that?”

Confused now, Haley replied, “Greg did,” as she looked between the two men. Tyler who’d faded into a corner, was almost forgotten.

“Right.” Kevin sounded like he’d made a point, though Haley clearly didn’t understand. Turning, Kevin spat, “Big hero.”

Greg leaned over to see Haley better; he could hear her anxious breathing from where he was, see the sweat that fear had brought to her skin. “Hey, man, I’m just looking out for her. Trying to help.” Taking a calculated risk, he went on. “You got someone to look out for you, Kevin? You got folks to take care of you?”

Kevin, who’d shifted back to Haley, whirled with sudden rage. “What do you know about my folks?!”

It was fortunate for Greg that Haley cut in, her own voice rising with anger. “Greg took care of me. He cared about me. Leave him alone!”

Unnoticed thanks to Haley, the Sergeant reeled, the volume Kevin had used slamming into him like physical blows. Even Haley’s defense prompted a cringe as sensitive hearing was assaulted anew.

Almost plaintive, Kevin asked, “What did I do? What did I do?” He wasn’t all bad, Greg knew. He _had_ helped Haley, as much as he could, but he hadn’t been willing to make the sacrifices, the effort to become someone better, to put _Haley_ first, above his own wants and desires.

Haley mirrored her mentor’s thoughts as she retorted, “It’s what you didn’t do, Kevin. You didn’t get better. You gave up.”

“I never gave up on us,” Kevin whispered.

_Yeah, I bet you didn’t…a girl you thought was just like you, that you could manipulate and control._ Not a hint of the internal sarcasm made it to Greg’s voice as he pushed past his hurts to say, “That’s it, Kevin, come on. We can tell you care about her. So if you care about her, what’s all this for? Huh? You can see what it’s doing to her.”

He doubted Kevin actually cared; the man was too focused on his own goals, his own wants, his own needs. But he had to give the man credit for faking it so well. He had turned toward Greg at some point during Greg’s attempt to get the addict’s attention off Haley. “When I met Haley,” Kevin said flatly, “She was coming off a year-long binge. You know that? ‘Cause every night she’d go to sleep, she’d see her ma, dead on the floor in front of her.”

The negotiator…no, the _father’s_ heart ached. To think of any child forced into nightmares…but Haley wasn’t the only one. It was rare now, but Lance and Alanna still had nights where they woke screaming, ended up clinging to each other and him as the sun rose. The nightmares had increased after his…misadventure…something he’d blamed himself for until Ed and Wordy sat him down and talked some sense into him. His voice shook a little as he replied, “I know that.”

Kevin stalked to Greg’s left, a predator closing in on his kill. “Right. So you probably know this name, too. Huh? Randy Teller.”

Tyler spoke up, drawing attention to his corner of the room. “Who the heck is that?”

Calm, steady, Greg answered. “He’s the man we came to arrest that night.”

“Yeah,” Kevin agreed, stalking back, pacing back and forth like a scavenger waiting for a meal. “Now he’s in for life, because of that night.”

“ ‘Cause he opened fire on us,” Parker countered.

“That’s what, that’s what Haley remembers,” Kevin conceded. Greg wanted to throttle him, but tied to the table, he wasn’t going anywhere. “But the thing is, is that, um, after, uh, Haley and I took a break, I still really wanted to help her.”

_She dumps you and doesn’t come back for months and it’s a_ break _?_ “And that’s a good thing, Kevin,” Greg tried, though the odds of it doing any good were slim and none.

“So I, uh, I went to see Randy. And I asked him, I asked him what happened that night? I mean, uh…how did her ma die, really? You know what he told me?” Behind him, Haley’s gaze was turning interested, turning involved. Greg prayed she wouldn’t believe Kevin, wouldn’t let herself get sucked into what Kevin wanted for her. “He said, um…‘I was downstairs. I didn’t really see who shot her. But I know who was up there with her when it happened.’ ”

Now that was either Randy misinterpreting what had happened or lying and Greg didn’t much care which one it was. “Okay, wait. Wait, wait, wait, Kevin. Okay? All right? Guy like that, he’s going to tell you anything you want to hear.”

“Uh-uh,” Kevin denied.

“Yeah.”

“Uh-uh,” Kevin retorted forcefully. “Randy and my dad, they go way back.” Taking a step towards the bound officer, Kevin snapped, “Okay, he wouldn’t lie to me. He wouldn’t lie to me.”

“What did he say?” Haley demanded, bringing Kevin’s attention back to her.

Kevin turned back to Greg pointedly. “He said the cops and everybody were shooting like crazy downstairs. And upstairs was just your ma and him.”

Haley began to cry; Greg’s heart sank. She was being taken in, being tricked. He couldn’t stop it…and the fact that she was already starting to believe meant he had a nasty decision to make. Two, almost three, years ago, it would have been an easy decision, but now…now it wasn’t. Because Haley wasn’t the only one who needed him anymore.

* * * * *

_Haley could almost see it as Kevin spoke, could see the eight-year-old she had been. Hear her mother crying out, “Get away! Leave us alone!”_

_Her mother appeared in the doorway, gun in hand. “Baby, get under the bed. Get under the bed!” She was scrambling out of bed and squirming underneath, watching as her mother turned to look back down the stairs. “Oh, no, they’re coming. Leave us alone!”_

_That awful, awful gunshot rang out, her mother falling. And_ he _appeared, gun still up, the barrel smoking as he surveyed her fallen mother, then turned towards her._

* * * * *

He couldn’t help it, couldn’t help the denial he heard coming from his mouth, a frantic, last attempt to keep this _nightmare_ at bay. “No, no, no, that’s not how it happened. Randy wasn’t even there. How could he know?”

“Well, who else could it be, Greg?”

He kept his eyes from shifting with an effort. If he was going to tell, it was going to be on _his_ terms. Haley’s voice raised, pleading, desperate. He managed to keep his flinch hidden as her voice rose with each word. “Greg, it’s not true. It’s not true. The cops said that…”

Kevin cut her off, his possessive nature coming close to a boil. “The cops?” he demanded loudly, “The cops? Have you ever tried to look at this case? It’s sealed. The cops are trying to cover themselves. I mean, who you gonna blame for shooting the mother of a little girl, the cops or some junkie? Who do you believe?”

It was actually a halfway decent point, but lacked a little something called the truth. But Greg was prepared to concede that the truth wasn’t something easily seen by someone ten years later with second-hand facts. “Greg,” Haley begged, “Please tell me that you didn’t…”

Kevin cut her off again, cut him off too. “Yeah,” he goaded, victory in his eyes. “Who was it, Greg?” Advancing, he almost screamed, “What happened that night?”

Mentally, Greg staggered again at the volume, his hands flexing behind his back as he struggled to keep the punk from seeing him reel. Looking away, he thought hard for a moment, but knew his decision had been made already. Had, if he was honest, been made the moment he’d opened his door over two years ago and met two orphaned teenagers. Greg Parker had no illusions; Kevin would likely refuse to believe him, refuse to accept anything he said as anything other than another cover-up, and would, he could almost guarantee, kill him regardless. So he wasn’t going to give the punk what he wanted…not right away anyway. One last thing first.

* * * * *

With every millimeter of the bravado the insolent junkie had probably learned from his drug-soaked cradle, the white-haired Joe said, “Do what you want to me; I got nothing to say.”

Oh, he had plenty to say, Ed Lane knew, and darned if Ed wasn’t going to _shake_ it out of the man if he had to. The addict in front of him had _attacked his boss_ , helped _kidnap_ him, no way was he going to walk away. But Ed schooled his temper, only letting it glitter in his eyes as he replied, “I’m not gonna do anything to you.”

Caught off guard, the junkie’s eyes flicked up uncertainly. Cautious, wary, he remarked, “Okay, that’s good.”

Verbally moving in for the kill, Ed elaborated, “I’m just gonna put you in a squad car, drive you around for a little while, while all your little buddies here get busted for possession, resisting, that kind of thing.” The junkie absorbed the words, his eyes flicking between the angry cop and his fellow addicts; his expression turned trapped. “And then you can explain to them why they all have court dates and you’re running around scot-free. I’m sure they’re gonna understand.”

Self-preservation kicked in, a much stronger, well-practiced instinct than Persheski’s parental instincts. Given a choice between saving himself or protecting his son, the junkie folded. “Maybe I know something, about some kids doing wrong.” Hastily, he added, “Not that I condone it, you understand.”

Ed nearly let the man have it, but his boss was more important than taking out his fury on a junkie. “Yeah, yeah, yeah,” he spat, making it clear he wouldn’t accept any more verbal delays.

Persheski didn’t get the hint. “I just have a condition.”

Thankfully, Jules stepped in, cutting off the impending eruption of Mount Lane. “Well, you help us find our guy, and we’ll work it out.”

The junkie, not picking up on Ed’s growing fury, shot back, “It’s my condition, you understand? I’m not bad. Not like these kids.”

“I’m not gonna ask you again,” Lane snarled, murder in his light blue eyes.

Self-preservation and righteous indignation made for a snarky informant as Persheski finally spilled, “It’s a meth lab; I can tell you where it is.”

“You’re gonna show us,” Sam told him, blunt and matter-of-fact as he pushed his detainee toward the meth house door.

“Sure, sure,” the now cooperative junkie agreed. But he couldn’t just let it rest for, as Sam hauled him towards the door and the trucks, he babbled, “You know, it’s these kids, I’m telling you. Tyler-- he’s the crazy one. Kevin’s not so bad. He’s the brains. A good-looking boy, at least. Ah, my side of the family.”

“Get him out of here,” Ed snapped, irritated all over again. But the man had dropped some interesting information. _The brains, eh? I’m gonna guess_ Kevin’s _calling the shots, not this ‘Tyler.’_ The team leader followed his teammates out the door, already calculating their next move. _Hold on, Greg; we’re coming._


	7. What the Kids Were Up To

_2 hours earlier_

The two young Wild Mages were bored stiff as their respective first period classes wore on. Lance’s class, an introductory algebra class, was being run by one of the worst math teachers in the school. Lance had already had to _prove_ , mathematically, that on every last one of his tests for the entire school year, he’d gotten questions right that his teacher had marked wrong. Others that he’d gotten wrong had been marked as correct, forcing the teen to, in essence, grade his own tests. As such, the teen wasn’t impressed with his teacher and habitually used the class time to study on his own or work on other classes. To his everlasting amusement, he’d never gotten in trouble for ignoring his teacher.

Alanna’s class, Charms, was run by a more competent teacher, but Charms just happened to be Alanna’s best subject. Almost every spell the class taught, she mastered before the end of the period and often much earlier. Today was their theory day, something that left her bored and doodling in her notebook because, as good as the teacher was, he lectured about theory straight out of the textbook and she’d read the textbook chapter the week before while waiting for class to be over.

So it was two rather bored teenagers who felt their magic first tingle, then flare in outrage. The pair, almost immediately on the alert, looked around, trying to figure out what had caused the magical flare. Though Wild Magic does not speak, as such, it could and _did_ communicate that something was wrong with their family. Alanna cautiously shifted her materials close to her bag, covering her reach down to slip a small pill out of the book bag. With a tiny smirk, she brought it up to her mouth and took a bite. Seconds later, her nose started bleeding, prompting her teacher to let her out of class to go to the infirmary. Promising to send her book bag along with a fellow student, the redhead was ushered out of the class by her teacher.

Alanna smiled sweetly at her instructor, saying, “I can make it on my own…it’s not that bad.”

Her teacher, who looked a bit green at the blood, quickly agreed and retreated. Alanna ate the other end of the pill as she headed for her locker, stopping the nosebleed. A few quick twists of her wand at the locker and it popped open. She yanked the second bag inside out and, closing the locker, headed for a meet-up point the siblings had designated in an emergency. Only the students knew about that exit out of the school grounds and few used it because it came dangerously close to the school headmaster’s office. Arriving, she glanced around and frowned. Lance wasn’t here yet, but she’d bet her wand he’d gotten the same alert she had. Thoughtful, she surveyed her bag and decided.

She headed for the nearest girls bathroom and quickly changed, shoving her school robes and techie clothing inside the bag, under the bow and quiver still inside. When she came back out and arrived back at the meet-up point, Lance was waiting, his bag slung over his back as he adjusted his vambraces. Sharp sapphire eyes swept over her and he quirked a grin. “Let’s go.”

“How are we going to hide the armor?” Alanna asked pointedly.

Lance looked back at her, blinking a moment, before a sheepish look appeared. He dropped his wand into his left hand, quickly casting, “ _Muto aspectus_ **(1)**,” at both his armor and hers. Their armors’ appearance shifted, becoming casual, street clothes versions of themselves. The colors were the same and they looked a bit odd, but the siblings could get by without undue notice now. “Okay now?” Lance queried.

Alanna inspected her armor a moment before nodding and hurrying after her brother. They were off the school grounds and halfway to the nearest bus stop before anyone realized they were gone.

* * * * *

Lance ducked down the back exit of the bus, grumbling under his breath. Ordinarily, he liked cops – it came with the territory of being a ‘member of the family’ to an entire team of them – but right now, no, just no. Alanna, on his heels, sported a look of mulish agreement. The alarm back at their school meant that their uncle would have been called; he, in turn, wouldn’t have hesitated to get their descriptions out to the street cops. The teenagers used the nearby crowd to duck right past the cops now walking through the bus, searching for them.

“Now what?” Alanna asked, looking around.

Lance scowled. To the best of his judgment, they were perhaps halfway to their missing family member. He glanced back at his sister, sighing. “We’re not close enough to walk, sis, and our Animagus forms are out.” She grimaced, but inclined her head in agreement. “We’ll have to risk another bus; it’s the only way we’ll get there in time.” So saying, he swung left, crossing the street as he headed for the next bus stop that would put them in the right direction. His sister followed.

* * * * *

They got off the second bus much closer to their destination; fortunately, there hadn’t been any more close encounters with street cops. Now they moved along the sidewalk, heads high as they did their level best to look as though they belonged in this ragged, dirty, almost threadbare part of town. Ordinarily, it wouldn’t have worked, the two teens would have been pounced on within minutes, but Lance also took the precaution of letting his magic out as much as he dared, a flaring of his magical aura that gave the distinct impression of someone not to be crossed. Not a single gang member, drug dealer, or streetwalker challenged the pair as they made their way to a long abandoned building surrounded by a high, iron post fence. The teens inspected the building, grimacing as they realized there was no easy way in. The front gate was wrapped with a thick, heavy chain that they dared not use magic on. Stymied at the front, they made their way around the outer perimeter of the fence, looking for a way in.

Then, at one corner, Lance stopped, inspecting the fence and the building. “Lance?” Alanna questioned.

Her brother tilted his head, studying the fence and the building beyond with a thoughtful look. “Maybe we can get over the fence here, sis.”

“How?”

Lance pointed to the building. “No windows facing this way, sis, and we’re out of sight from the main gate.”

Violet eyes went wide at the implication. “But…our Animagus forms, won’t they be detected?”

The young man arched a brow at her. “How’s that, sis? We don’t use our wands to transform.”

A smile spread across the young girl’s face and she _blurred_ , a violet phoenix taking her place as her brother _blurred_ into a gryphon. Both animals took flight, sweeping over the fence and landing on the other side where they _blurred_ back into human form. The Animagus forms had negated the glamour charms on their armor, but the teens didn’t care. They were close enough that if someone saw their armor, odds were it would be either their missing family member or the bad guys. Accordingly, the teens also took the time to arm themselves, Lance retrieving his sheathed sword and belting it on while Alanna slung her quiver over her head and onto her back, hooking her bow in place once it had settled. The pair trekked across the open area between them and the building, angling for the door they’d spotted at the building’s rear.

As they approached the door, Lance slowed, his magic murmuring warning. “Lance?” Alanna asked again, slowing herself.

“Don’t you feel it?” Lance queried. “Something’s wrong.”

Alanna’s eyes filmed violet as she summoned her own magic. “Yeah,” she agreed, “I feel it.” Eyeing the door nervously, she added, “Something about the door is…wrong.” Abruptly her head snapped upwards and she cried out in horror. “It’s Uncle Greg!”

Lance felt his magic hum agreement, fueling his own horror – and fury. “Not again.”

They traded looks. Not again… _never_ again. Alanna clenched her fists. “I saw a door at the front…let’s try there.”

Scrambling for the door, they reached it…only to find that the door was thick enough, secure enough, and magic-repellant enough to keep them out. Lance hissed in frustration, stepping back and staring up the sides of the building. A gleam in his eye kept Alanna from commenting. Then he turned and raced away; she followed at his heels, confused, but trusting that her brother had an idea. When he reached the corner they’d used to get over the wall, he halted and she saw his plan. Without a word, she _blurred_ and he followed suit. Flamewings and Illishar took flight, careful to stay away from the windows as they climbed, cruising to the roof area right next to the third floor.

Once there, the siblings approached the windows at a crouch, staying as much out of the line of sight as possible. Their magic thrummed, letting them know that no one was in the large room to see them. Careful, careful, Lance straightened and started applying pressure to the window. It took a minute or two, but the window, old, worn, and poorly maintained, gave with a quiet crack and fell inwards. Alanna offered hers and Lance’s bags, the elder of the siblings placing the bags so the pair could get through the broken window without cutting themselves.

They slithered through, retrieving the bags once they were inside. Firmly in enemy territory, they communicated with hand signals they’d picked up from Team One, following their magic’s whisper out of the large room and down a hallway. They stayed in cover as much as possible, leapfrogging down the corridor. Alanna did her best to ignore the graffiti, blushing whenever she spotted a particularly randy or colorful word. Voices ahead told them they were getting close; Lance slowed down more, tossing a warning look at Alanna when _she_ tried to speed up.

Ahead of them, Lance spotted an open door, scowling as raised voices came from beyond the doorway. He waved Alanna back, not willing to risk his fiery sister charging into more trouble than they could handle, and crept up to the door, peeking around the frame as cautiously as he could. He stiffened; his uncle was bound to a table leg, Haley and two unknown men were standing in front of him, and Haley _wasn’t_ trying to help his uncle. He wanted to rush in, get his uncle out, but he reined the impulse in. Instead, he backed away, glancing up. Alanna gave him a glare, backing it up with insistent hand signals. The boy set his jaw, shaking his head at her and signaling what he’d seen from the doorway. He did gesture to the ceiling, signaling his idea. Alanna cocked her head, studying the ceiling herself; she pursed her lips, tilting her head back the other way, and finally signaled a ‘yes’ at Lance.

Lance shifted, staying well away from the door, and lifted both hands, palms up. Golden light streamed from his palms, striking the ceiling. In seconds, the light crafted a small ledge for the pair to hide on. They did have to move into view of the doorway to get up onto the ledge, and the ledge itself could be seen if someone looked up, but in short order they’d slithered up on the ledge and positioned themselves to watch the unfolding drama.

Just as they finished getting into place, Haley cried, “Greg, please tell me that you didn’t…”

One of the men, the shorter one in a knit cap, immediately added, “Yeah, who was it, Greg?” He stalked up to their uncle, screaming, “What happened that night?!”

Lance gave a soft hiss; his uncle’s flinch, invisible to his captors and Haley, was clear to the young Wild Mage. Alanna’s own soft noise was distressed, she liked Haley; though Lance did too, he wasn’t impressed with which side the older girl appeared to be on. Their uncle didn’t respond, making the boy bite his lip nervously.

Haley didn’t wait for a response; she sounded as if she was crying as she demanded, “Why didn’t you just tell me?”

Their uncle sighed, but didn’t get a chance to respond as Knit Cap broke in, sounding both scornful and victorious. “Because it’s the truth. The truth is, he never cared about you.”

Haley’s rejoinder made Lance prick his ears and forgive her, at least a little. “No, Greg did care. He saved me. He kept me together.”

And now, now, their uncle joined the conversation, looking straight at Haley as he interjected, “You know the answer to that. I didn’t keep you together, you kept me together.”

Two puzzled looks were exchanged, accompanied in the background by Knit Cap’s confused, disdainful, “What the heck is that supposed to mean?”

“It means that you, me and Haley, we’re not so different, okay?” _What?_ “I know what it’s like to want to hide. I know what it’s like to make yourself feel numb. And the night that I found Haley under that bed, I was a mess.” Horrified looks flicked between the siblings. “I mean, the stuff you see every day as a cop, on the job, makes you want to make some bad choices. And mine was the bottle.” Alanna covered her mouth to stifle her whimper. “That night, after everything, I hit that bottle harder than I ever had before. And when I woke up, my family was gone. My wife was gone. She took my son; he was six years old. I haven’t seen them since.”

Lance’s expression had gone still, his emotions locked away as he watched. Knit Cap leaned to the side, his anger and scorn ringing in each word. “So? Is that her fault? Is that what you’re saying?”

“No,” their uncle countered. “No, that’s my fault. That’s my fault.” For a moment, silence hung; the siblings waiting for the next part, the story they’d never heard before. “Well, I took a leave from the job. Holed up at home, case of vodka and a promise: either I finish these bottles or they finish me.” Lance’s eyes glittered with helpless fury at the admission. “And then I got this letter, out of nowhere, in kid’s handwriting.” Their uncle looked up at Haley, her shoulders shaking as she cried. “ ‘Hi, Detective Parker. It’s me, Haley. And I wanted to say thank you for helping me.’ And she was scared, but she was gonna be brave. An eight-year-old girl.” For that alone, Lance would forgive Haley for her actions here today, for saving his uncle…from himself. “Took me three days to sober up. And then, that’s when I wrote you back. Everything I ever did for you, you did for me. Okay?” He paused, his eyes turning intense. “If you hadn’t reached out, Haley, if our relationship had begun and ended that night, I never would have met Lance and Alanna…I wouldn’t have lived that long.”

Haley’s cry cut him off, a high, almost despairing sound. “No, no, you would have made it, Greg; tell me you would have. You wouldn’t have left them alone.”

“Who?” Knit Cap demanded. Turning on Haley, he barked, “Who is he talking about?”

She flinched from his fury, drawing an attempt from Uncle Greg to get loose, a futile effort. But Haley stood her ground, looking past Knit Cap. “You love them,” she cried, “You wouldn’t have left them.”

Uncle Greg shook his head as he spoke. “Haley, I didn’t _know_ about them back then.”

Knit Cap didn’t take kindly to being ignored; he roared, “Who are they?” in Haley’s face. She cowered from him like a frightened animal; Uncle Greg fought to get loose, though his face twisted in pain from the shouting.

“Haley,” Uncle Greg called, low, intense. “What happened after that night, what you’ve become, what I’ve seen you turn into, Haley, that’s, that’s what matters. You’re strong, Haley, stronger than you know. Could you tell them? If anything,” his eyes darted to Knit Cap, “happens, tell them I love them.”

“I will,” she promised, then her shoulders shook. “So, that night, that’s the only reason you cared for me…helped me? You only helped me because of what you did to my Mom?”

Lance covered Alanna’s mouth before she could make a noise of outrage; though he was just as angry, they could _not be found_. Not after Knit Cap’s display of temper. _Please, Aslan. Keep us safe…all of us._

 

[1] Latin for ‘To change appearance’


	8. Haley and the Poster

The trucks rolled, moving steadily through streets that rapidly became more run-down, more fearful, reeking of drugs and filth. Persheski, in the back, couldn’t keep his mouth shut. “Big gate at the front,” he babbled, “Don’t know how you’re getting through.”

“That shouldn’t be a problem,” Sam drawled, twisting the wheel to keep the truck away from a pothole.

Ed keyed his comm, alerting his team. “All right, guys, hard vehicle entry.”

“Turn coming up,” the backseat loudmouth called.

As Sam turned the truck, Spike began running down the potential threats. “Looking at a highly volatile environment. Air could have anything in it, from acetone to red phosphorous, isopropyl alcohol. Everything’s flammable and unstable, guys.”

Jules piped in with a list of the now prohibited equipment. “Guns, rams, C.S. gas-- they all give off a spark.”

Ed’s phone rang, drawing the team leader’s attention. Picking up, he said, “Go for Lane.”

A gravelly voice came from the other end, rough with age, use, and smoking. “Got your message, Ed. Jim Keach. What the heck’s going on with Greg?”

Unoffended by the man’s rough manner, Ed replied, “Hey, Jim, we got a situation here. We don’t have a lot of time. Listen, you remember about ten years ago, you and Greg were partners in Homicide. You had a case, and a woman named Brynne got shot. You remember that?”

With a wary note, Jim confirmed, “Yeah, what about it?”

“The little girl in that case, we think she’s involved here today. We need to know what happened that night,” Ed explained.

To Ed’s intense frustration, Jim’s first response was, “Case file is sealed on that one, Ed.”

“I know that, Jim,” Ed retorted. “So you’re the only one who can tell me the whole story. I don’t think Greg’s gonna mind, considering what’s going on here.”

“Yeah, I don’t know about that one, Ed,” Jim drawled, reluctance in every word. “But seeing as how Greg was the one who sealed it in the first place…”

“He did?” a startled Ed asked.

“Yeah.”

“Well, can you tell me why?”

Jim’s voice turned thoughtful, reminiscing. “Had his reasons. Main thing I remember is the poster in that girl’s room. We’d been after Teller three months. Warrant came through that night…”

* * * * *

“No, Haley,” Greg denied softly. He’d stalled as long as he could, said everything he could on the personal front. Time to finally give Kevin the Punk what he wanted. “That night,” he began with a sigh, “We finally had the warrant we needed, so we took a couple of uniforms along as backup and headed down to where we knew Teller lived.” Haley stilled, Kevin’s glare was hot and angry. “Announced ourselves, knocked on the door, and Teller opened fire…”

* * * * *

“We hit the dirt, started returning fire and trying to get inside without ending up full of holes. Took longer than any of us wanted to finally get inside and take Teller and his goon squad down. By that point, the house was quiet, quiet as a grave…”

* * * * *

“I was the first one up the stairs,” Greg revealed, “The first cop in that room…your room, Haley. Found you, found your mother, and secured the gun that was between her and you…”

* * * * *

“At first, we weren’t sure _how_ she got shot. I mean, she was upstairs and everyone else was downstairs. I think maybe Greg knew as soon as he got in that room, but he stuck to that little girl like glue until Children’s Aid showed up. We were busy, processing the scene, processing the junkies, getting Teller under lock and key. Then Greg’s right behind me, and he’s got that look in his eyes, that look that said he knew what happened and it was bad. Took me back up to the room and just pointed at the poster…”

* * * * *

“I knew that night how she died, that’s part of why I crawled so deep in the bottle; I couldn’t take knowing what happened, knowing who’d shot your mother, Haley.”

“Because it was you!” Kevin burst out.

“No,” Greg denied again, shaking his head. He looked up, met Haley’s eyes and finally, finally said it. “Haley…the one who shot your mother…was you.”

“No!” Haley screeched, drawing a sharp flinch from Parker. “I didn’t, I didn’t shoot my own mother.” She was crying, tears streaming down her face, shaking her head in denial.

Kevin took it worse, lashing out at his captive, landing his first hit on Greg’s left cheekbone; the blow hurled Greg’s head back into the table leg and broke open the wound on the back of his head. Nor was Kevin satisfied with a single hit, landing several more kicks and punches, leaving an assortment of cuts and bruises on the SRU Sergeant. “She’s heard enough from you,” the angry man spat. Moving over to the crying girl, he reached out and wiped a tear off her face. “All right, Hale…maybe I blew it between us.” Stalking over to a table with a lamp on it, he plugged the lamp in as he continued, “But maybe now, I can make something right. ‘Cause now, we take care of this, maybe you can have some peace.” He turned the lamp on, watching as the bulb lit. “Put those nightmares behind you finally.”

Greg struggled hard, for the first time wishing he had magic himself so he could get loose, take Haley, and run. What he’d feared was coming to pass, nothing he could do to save himself, nothing he could do to spare Haley from the burden this would become. “Haley, get out of here. Get out of here.”

“You think I’m gonna hurt her, Greg?” Kevin sounded insulted as he spoke, as he turned off the lamp and removed the lampshade to expose the bare bulb. “I’m doing this for her.” He smashed the bulb, leaving the filament intact.

“For her?” Greg demanded incredulously. “What’s it gonna be like when the three of you are up on charges for killing a police officer?”

Kevin didn’t sound a bit concerned as he set the lamp’s timer and stalked across the room, saying, “No, what’s gonna happen is, is that we’re gonna be gone, this place is gonna blow, and all they’re gonna find is some cop who shouldn’t have been snooping around a volatile meth lab!”

He turned on the propane tanks, letting their gas hiss and escape into the room. Tyler, looming behind a still crying Haley, smirked viciously, enjoying the picture of Greg dying in a dramatic, attention-grabbing explosion. Greg’s attention was on Haley, his voice panicked, desperate for her to believe him now. “Haley, you can’t be a part of this. You have to go to the police. You can’t take a life. Once you take a life, it ruins your own; it can’t be undone. Just go, Haley, just go!”

“Let’s go,” Kevin started to say to Haley and Tyler, his back to the man he was about to kill.

Miracle of miracles, Haley spoke up, “We can’t do this.”

Kevin grasped her face, looking in her eyes, firm, refusing to give way. “Yes, we can.”

“No, I can’t,” she protested, shaking her head.

He gripped her harder, Greg fought to get loose. “Okay, maybe you can’t, but I can. Okay?”

“Let her go,” Greg pleaded, but he was ignored.

“Let’s go,” Kevin ordered Tyler, who yanked Haley from behind, pulling her from the room.

“Haley, just run,” Greg called, trying, even now, to protect her as best he could.

“Come on, come on,” Kevin hissed as his flunky kept pulling, he himself pushed Haley out of the room.

Behind them, Greg kept trying. “Haley, go. Run, Haley. Go to the police, Haley.” Kevin slammed the door hard, making the Sergeant flinch, but he kept yelling. “Just run, Haley!”

* * * * *

Lance tensed as the activity in the room beyond rose, Knit Cap carrying out his plan. Alanna started shifting and Lance grabbed her, covering her mouth to keep her quiet. Any noise they made was covered by the yells, hissing gas, and the door slamming shut. Their uncle kept yelling, trying to get Haley to run, get away, but she had nowhere to go; even if she wasn’t bound, she was a captive of the two men as much as their uncle was.

This was clearly evidenced as she tried to charge the door, to get back in. “No,” she wailed as the taller man caught her, held her back. “Kevin, please don’t do this.”

Knit Cap – or Kevin – ignored her as he turned the key in the door’s lock, then slammed on it with the butt of his gun until it broke.

“Kevin!” she shrieked in protest.

“Okay. It’s already done, okay?” Lance bared his teeth, fantasizing about shifting to Illishar and giving the man a taste of his own medicine. “We got to get away from here.” To his goon, he ordered, “Take her.”

“Move!” the taller one barked, turning Haley and forcing her after Kevin.


	9. Not Leaving Without Him

The three Chevy Tahoes pulled up to the rusted iron gates, locked and chained with a heavy padlock. Sam paused the lead truck long enough to check his position, then let the truck roll forward into the gate, the truck’s push bumper breaking the chain with ease, forcing the gates open and clearing the way. The trucks rolled through, racing up the drive. They spotted the black van used for the abduction as they pulled up on the concrete apron near the factory. Ed slid out of his truck, pulling his sidearm as he went. The rest of his team scrambled out, weapons ready. “Spike, check that van,” he ordered.

Spike raced over to the van, yanking the back doors open and sweeping the inside. “Clear.”

Walking towards the factory, Ed snapped, “I want everything non-conductive-- rubberized climbers, Gorilla Bars, everything. Spike, floor plans?”

“Nothing I could find,” the tech admitted.

Looking up, Ed decided, “All right, we’re gonna eyeball this one. Let’s fan out. Low profile. And talk to me.”

* * * * *

Lance surveyed the door grimly, waiting until the retreating trio was far enough to miss the sound of two kids tumbling down off the magical ledge. He crept over to it, examining the lock.

“Well?” Alanna hissed, her voice just above a whisper.

The young man shook his head. “I do it now, those three will hear,” he hissed back. “We know where the room is, let’s follow them until they’re far enough away.”

Alanna considered a moment, then nodded reluctantly. So far, her brother had been right; she’d just have to trust he was still right. They turned, hurrying, but staying far enough back and in cover enough that the trio never realized they were there.

Haley was still being physically pushed by the tall goon, his grip on her arms keeping her from escaping. “No. Please you can’t do this.”

“This is for you,” Kevin replied, his voice mostly flat, but also ingratiating, as if he was also saying, _How could you be so ungrateful? After everything I’ve done for you._

“Please,” Haley begged, her voice rising, “You can’t do this.”

Tall Goon snapped, “I swear, if you don’t shut up…”

“No!”

The teens following traded looks. Just a bit further and they could go back, get their uncle out without the bad guys knowing.

* * * * *

Wordy and Lou raced side by side, weapons up and ready, reaching the side wall in moments. “Every window on green wall’s secure-- bars and grates.”

On the opposite side, Jules and Spike pushed themselves faster as Jules reported, “Same on red. We’re on black wall now.”

Ed and Sam angled for a heavy door on their wall, Ed remarking, “Same on white,” as Sam tried the door. The rusted panels on either side of the door were coated with graffiti, something both officers ignored.

Sam examined the door a moment, then looked up, shaking his head. “The only way we’re getting in there is with a cutting torch.”

“No flames; too risky. Anybody else have an entrance? And check for explosives.”

On the rear wall, Spike and Jules located a chained gate, the paint still blue and untouched by graffiti. “Possible entry on black wall,” Jules called. “Heavily fortified though.” As Spike pulled out his equipment and handed Jules a tin of wipes, she added, “We’re testing now.”

* * * * *

Halfway across the bottom floor, just as the kids were about to turn back, Haley turned on Tall Goon, snapping, “Let me go!” She swiped at him, breaking free and immediately turning to race back.

“You @$#*%!” Tall Goon cried, grabbing her arm and pulling her back, his other arm lifting to strike her.

It was a mistake; Kevin turned on him, charging forward to yank Haley away and shoving his gun in Tall Goon’s face. “Don’t you touch her!”

Tall Goon had had enough, backing away and saying, “This is your problem, man.”

Lance and Alanna had taken full advantage, turning and racing back towards their trapped uncle. Lance, who’d summoned his animagus hearing to keep a watch out, heard Haley plead, “We have to go back.”

Kevin’s response was oh-so-predictable. “Oh, Haley, just please trust me, okay? Trust me.”

* * * * *

Jules wiped the lock, handing the wipe back to Spike, who immediately put it in his scanner. It bleeped at him, prompting a grim, “Guys, heavy nitrate residue on this door. It’s too risky.”

Ed’s eyes went hard, the frantic, _No, not Greg; please, I want my friend back,_ mantra shoved in a tiny box at the back of his head. “We need an entrance, people. Wordy, Lou, can you make it happen?”

A discouraged, “Not without making a lot of noise,” came from Wordy.

“Come on, people, we got to get in here.”

In the next moment, his prayer was answered as noise came from the door he and Sam were next to. “Ed, we’ve got movement on white,” Sam hissed.

“All right,” Lou called over the comm, he and Wordy already hurrying back.

Sam scrambled to the other side of the door, out of sight, while Ed moved outwards, judging how far the door would swing. As the subject walked out, so angry he didn’t even look, Ed lunged, letting his fury out as he grabbed the man, slammed him against the wall, and shoved him up, snarling, “How many inside?”

The punk did what most punks do when confronted with a superior force; he folded, wailing and sniveling. “It’s not my fault! I didn’t want to do it!”

Ed slammed him against the wall again and tightened his grip on the punk’s throat. “How many?”

“Two,” the punk spat. “Plus the cop.”

“Plus the cop,” Ed growled, his face twisted in rage. He let go of the punk’s throat, grabbed his jacket and ordered, “Keep him here.” As Spike took charge of the prisoner, Ed continued, “Sam, Wordy, Lou, with me.”

Spike took the opportunity to vent his own fury as he whirled the punk around, slamming him against the paneling and yelling, “Turn around! Hands on the wall! Keep still!”

Still not realizing just how _much_ trouble he was in, the punk snapped, “Relax, man!”

As the four entered the building, Ed felt something pulse, desperation, fear, and panic slamming into him, one right after the other; he staggered. Beside him, Wordy, Lou, and Sam also staggered. It only took a second for realization to hit him…Greg’s ‘team sense’, it had to be. Somehow, his boss had managed to turn it back on itself, broadcasting _his_ emotions and location. Why had he waited so long? Or had Greg been trying to reach them all along and they just hadn’t been close enough? Before they could act on the new…information…the ‘team sense’ stuttered, faltered, and died. Ed froze, praying, with all his heart, that his boss hadn’t just died too.

Then he spotted movement and yelled, “Police! Get down!”

“Drop your weapon!” Sam’s own voice rang out, shaky, but loud.

“Police! Get down!” Ed ordered again, seeing two individuals as the cops charged into the larger room. One female, unarmed; one male, armed and with a grip on the female’s arm.

“Stay back!” the male shouted, dragging his hostage with him as he made for the cover of the building’s support beams.

“You have to help him, please!” the female shrieked, giving Ed a very good clue of who she was; he glanced at Wordy and the man gave him a single nod. Haley.

From behind the pillar, Ed heard the male hiss, “Stop. S-Stop.”

“Where’s Greg Parker?” Ed demanded.

“He’s dead!”

This time, Ed didn’t flinch at the words. Greg had been alive just a few seconds ago, alive enough to pull a stunt none of them had thought possible. Instead, he signaled Wordy and Lou, ordering them to search for their Sergeant. As they left, Ed and Sam advanced on the pair, a meter or so apart and weapons raised.

“It’s over,” the male claimed.

“Okay, you’re Kevin, right?”

Ed blinked as he again heard what he shouldn’t have, though the enhanced hearing was already fading, as if it had been tied to the brief contact his boss had been able to make. “Shh,” Kevin whispered to his captive; she was struggling, he could hear it.

“Is that Haley with you?” Ed asked. “We’re here to help, buddy. We just want to talk.”

“We don’t need your help!” Kevin shouted.

“Let’s just calm down here, Kevin. Let’s just talk about this.”

* * * * *

Magic sang, pulsing. They were here, the team was here. But there was no time to wait for them, no time to waste. Alanna skidded in front of her brother as they reached the door; refusing to wait, she flung out her right hand and snapped, “ _Tospringe_.” The lock, forced open against the broken key, broke itself; the magic overpowering the metal and sending the shards of the lock driving deep into the wood. The teens paid no attention as they hauled the door open to see their beloved uncle slumped sideways on the floor, unconscious as the gas hissed and the lamp timer ticked down. Blood dripped down his face, gleaming wetly in the dim light.

* * * * *

Jules was less than an inch from the cuffed punk leaning against the front of the lead truck, her voice low, furious, and intense. “Do you want to make this more complicated than it has to be?”

“No, I don’t,” the punk claimed.

Grabbing him, she ordered, “Then tell us how to get our friend out of there safely!”

“We can’t!” he cried. “It’s gonna blow up in, like, five minutes, and we have to get away!”

Spike spread the alert, yelling, “Guys, it’s gonna detonate in five minutes. You need to get out of there right now!”

“Not going anywhere without the Boss,” Ed retorted.

* * * * *

Wordy and Lou raced through the factory, chasing the echo of those precious few seconds they’d been able to detect their boss’s exact location. Wordy, behind Lou, took a moment to wonder if that was what Greg felt from all of them, all the time. If so, he was more impressed that his boss was still sane than indignant over the invasion of privacy.

* * * * *

As much as they both wanted to fly to their uncle’s side, they handled the room’s traps first. Alanna darted to the side table, yanking the plug out of the power strip, shutting down the deadly lamp timer. Lance threw himself at the propane tanks, turning the valves to stop the flow of gas. As the room fell silent, they turned toward their uncle.

* * * * *

“We need to know where Greg is, Kevin,” Ed called. “We can work everything else out, but we need to know where Greg is.”

Kevin’s denial rang in his tone as well as his words. “No. No. He doesn’t get to be the hero. Not this time.”

Ed shook his head. “Nobody’s trying to be a hero here, Kevin.” He lowered his voice. “I need a 20 on the Sarge.”

* * * * *

“Nothing so far,” Lou reported.

The pair exchanged looks as Wordy thought, hard, concentrating on _where_ the emotions had felt like they were coming from. “Felt…north…”

“Maybe a little east,” Lou rejoined.

“Northeast corner,” Wordy decided, before calling, “We’re on our way.”

* * * * *

“Kevin, can you tell me what this is about?” Ed coaxed. Maybe a little negotiating might get them enough leverage.

“Yeah, yeah, I can tell you in five minutes,” Kevin called back. _Punk._ “In five minutes, I can tell you everything.”

The faint sounds of a struggle reached the two cops; Haley hadn’t liked that one bit.

“He’s stalling,” Ed breathed. “I need some answers here, people, now.”

* * * * *

Outside, the punk was looking up, looking anywhere but at the angry cop in his face. “Look at me!” Jules ordered. “Look at me!” As the punk finally looked down at her, she demanded, “What did he tell Haley?”

Cowed again, the punk spilled. “About her mom. Something about her mom.”

“Ed, it’s something about Haley’s mom.”

* * * * *

“Kevin…is this about Haley’s mom?”

“I don’t want to hear anymore lies, okay? So stop talking!”

Ed wasn’t a beaten, captive man, so he had no intention of bowing to the juvenile meth head. “All right, we’ll stop! Just tell us where Greg is, and we’ll stop all of this, Kevin!”

* * * * *

“Uncle Greg,” Alanna pleaded, crouching by her uncle’s still form.

Lance checked his pulse, breathing out in relief. “He’s alive, ‘Lanna.”

A soft, incoherent sound came from below them, the fallen Sergeant beginning to stir again.

“Easy, Uncle, easy,” Lance coached. “We’ve got you, we’ve got you.”

* * * * *

Wordy had taken the lead as they darted up the stairs, searching the northeast corner, but there was nothing…no one. He felt his shoulders slump, where was Sarge?

For an instant, something brushed him, brushed _both_ of them, but again, it was gone too quickly to get a fix on.

“It’s like chasing echoes,” Lou remarked.

Wordy’s shoulders straightened. “We’ve got to keep going, _find_ him.”

* * * * *

“Kevin, I need to know what you told Haley about that night. Kevin?”

Stubborn, insolent anger rang in the young man’s tones. “I told her the truth, okay? That, that he killed her mom!”

“Who, who killed her mom?” He could guess what Kevin believed, but it was wrong.

“You know who kill-- Greg did!” _Yeah, that’s what I thought you thought._ “Don’t try to cover for him, okay? Because I know what happened. He was the only one in the room!”

_No, he wasn’t._ “He didn’t tell you?” Ed started, grim and planning to have _words_ with his boss once this was over. “Okay, Kevin, you want the truth? Here it is. Haley’s the one who shot her mother.” He paused, listening hard. Nothing understandable. “Now, I know, I know you don’t want to believe that.”

“I did not shoot my mother,” Haley wailed.

“Greg didn’t tell you, Haley, because you were a kid. You didn’t mean to shoot anybody, all right? He knew what that would do to you, that’s all. The poster in your room. Remember the poster?”

* * * * *

He was waking up, regaining consciousness, still alive. But alive had an unpleasant surprise as his niece’s voice rang out, “Is he gonna be okay?”

And worse, his nephew answered. “I think so, ‘Lanna. That guy hit him pretty hard, but it mostly looks like cuts and bruises.” A pause, his nephew changing position. “I’m worried about this, but it looks like it’s been there for a while. There’s dry blood on it.”

“What are you doing here?” Greg tried to demand, but it only came out as a mumble.

“He’s waking up,” Alanna cried with joy, though she kept her voice down.

“Yeah, and we gotta go,” Lance agreed, already shifting his position again. “Uncle Greg?”

Greg tried, really tried to shift, to get up, but he couldn’t…not yet. He did manage another mumble, demanding that they go, but even if he’d been clear, they wouldn’t have gone.

“Easy, Uncle Greg,” Lance soothed. “I’m gonna get you up; everything’s gonna be okay.”

* * * * *

_She remembered…it was like she was right_ there _again, lying in bed, watching the poster…her one link to a better world. Her mother’s voice ringing out, her mother appearing in the doorway; scrambling under her bed._

_But this time, when she saw her mother trip and fall, she also saw the gun slide across the floor to her, an inch from her hand. Her mother turned, crying, “Get it. Baby, get the gun!”_

_She reached out for the gun, heard the shot, saw the poster. The poster, spattered with blood, forever marred._

“That’s how the cops found out. There was blood on the poster. That the shot could only have come from inside the room, from the floor. Now, that gun had a hair trigger on it, Haley. It had a hair trigger. It could have happened to anybody, anybody. Now, I know Greg, like you do. And he must have had a pretty good reason not to tell you this today.”

_Haley saw him enter the room, cross to her bed, lift the skirt and meet her eyes. Saw him look over and reach out, tugging the gun away from her mother’s body. Look back at her, eyes gentle and kind. “I got you.”_

* * * * *

Uncle Greg groaned, still not really coherent, not really more than half-conscious yet. But, even with the bomb disabled, Lance was pretty sure they were running out of time. So the teenager leaned over his uncle and started pulling him up, getting one of his uncle’s arms around his neck and using his muscles, weight, and sheer determination to heft the stocky man up. They were about the same height, though Uncle Greg was convinced Lance was going to end up much taller; Lance came close to overbalancing as his uncle’s dead weight dragged at him, but he stubbornly refused to let go, shifting his uncle until he could stand and they could move. He threw a nod at the door and Alanna obeyed, heading out first with Lance and Uncle Greg on her heels.

* * * * *

“Now, I want my friend to live. And I’m betting you do, too,” Ed finished, hoping, praying.

With soft sobs, Haley admitted, “I had the gun.” She managed to break loose from Kevin, backing into the open. “It was in my hand. It was my fault. I remember.”

But Kevin wasn’t about to let it happen, wasn’t about to give up on what he’d spent the last hours, days, weeks for. He roared in rage and denial, spinning away from the building beam in fury. “No! No! He doesn’t get to be the hero this time!” So saying, he aimed his gun…at Haley.

Ed and Sam were out of position; Kevin was still behind the beam, still protected. All they could do was watch…and pray the building didn’t go up when Kevin fired.

* * * * *

_Thu-whirrr_ , _thuunng_ came, sudden sounds that made Kevin jerk back, his gaze going upwards in shock and disbelief. The gun rose with his gaze, aiming up at something none of them could see. Haley bolted as soon as the gun was off of her, Kevin’s eyes sweeping back downwards as he snarled, like an animal, at his prize escaping.

Sam moved, tackling Kevin from behind and taking him down with a furious roar of his own. “Down on the ground! Drop it!”

Ed grabbed Haley, hauling her behind him and looking up himself as he moved forward. His jaw dropped at the sight of Alanna, in full armor, holding her bow and looking pleased and smug as she looked down at the now down and being cuffed Kevin. Without thinking, Ed’s eyes dropped to the beam and he blinked. An arrow, still vibrating, was embedded in the metal less than three centimeters from where Kevin had been standing, at Kevin’s eye level. The team leader sucked a breath in, looking upwards again…and nearly fell over in sheer relief. Lance, also in armor, under Greg’s shoulder, supporting the injured man as they reached the catwalk. Ed felt his shoulders relax…it was finally over.


	10. Epilogue

The teens sat in the passenger side of a truck, watched over by Wordy, who’d been nearly incandescent with parental rage and panic when he found out the pair had snuck out of school to find their uncle. He’d already done the first chewing out, informing them of what, exactly, could have happened if they’d been caught by any gangs or, worse, by Kevin and Tyler themselves. Spike had been right in there with him, acidly interjecting what Team One had _suspected_ upon finding out they were missing: that they and Greg had all been kidnapped by the same person or persons, with nothing good coming out of the encounter.

Jules had a different target and she stood over him as he sat on an ambulance stretcher, breathing in pure oxygen. Sam hauled a still struggling Kevin past, the arrested man fighting to get loose and calling Haley’s name as he was dragged along. Jules started in on her boss, indignant. “So you say to yourself, ‘I can handle this alone, no problem. I’m a smart guy. I’m Sergeant Greg Parker of the SRU.’ ” Greg lowered the mask to respond and she pushed it back up. “Keep it on. Breathe. You think, ‘I can just talk my way out of this. I can, I can talk bullets right back up the barrel ‘cause that’s the kind of genius I am.’ ”

“Jules…” Greg protested, lowering the mask.

She overrode him again. “You could have died. Died. And all because, because you want to protect this girl from something you didn’t think she should know? What?”

Now he gestured for her to stop, his eyes going hard. “You think I’d do that to the kids?” he demanded. “They need me, a lot more than Haley does these days.” He shook his head, wincing as that jostled his head wound. “I _did_ tell her, Jules; I _did_ tell them.” She froze, staring. “I knew it wouldn’t work; I knew Kevin thought I’d done it and nothing I said would convince him otherwise. I knew he was planning to kill me, regardless of anything else that happened. But I couldn’t be one hundred percent sure and, well, what did I have to lose?” Jules swallowed hard. “So, yeah, Jules, I told them the truth.” Around them, the team’s attention had landed on the pair with laser-like focus, all of them, to a man, stunned that their boss _had_ told Haley and Kevin the truth and the pair hadn’t believed him.

Greg sighed, his attention landing on his _nipotes_. “When they left, I kept trying to get free, but that gas had me out pretty quick.” Jules sucked in another breath, grimacing. “Woke up with _mio nipotes_ there. And, much as I hate to admit it, Jules, we’re not gonna win with them.” Jules turned to look as well; the kids looked utterly unrepentant as they sat there, back in their street clothes. “They know they can interfere; they know we can’t really stop them or keep them out of this. Maybe I was just kidding myself that I could keep them from interfering after the first couple of times.”

“They’re kids,” Jules protested.

Her boss nodded agreement. “I know that, Jules; you know that, the _team_ knows that, and, at the end of the day, they know it too. But they don’t care, Jules. They don’t care if one of us is on the line…even if they only _think_ we’re on the line.”

“They could get killed,” Jules whispered, fear clenching her heart. The rest of the eavesdropping team winced at her words.

“I’m not saying we just buckle under,” Greg pointed out quietly. “They’re in big trouble and they know it; I’m sure the next three months without their books and games will be interesting…along with the self-defense classes I’m going to schedule as many days a week as I can get away with.”

Jules smirked, getting her boss’s plan. “Force them to learn how to fight without their magic,” she mused, “They learn at least the basics _and_ get punished.” She didn’t think they’d resent the lessons because they were being punished; the kids tended to accept their punishments as simply part of the price for interfering. Which really should have been the adults’ first clue that the punishments weren’t working to _deter_ the behavior. “And when they _do_ interfere?” she asked.

Her boss sighed, considering for a moment. “Keep trying, I guess. Keep punishing them, not letting them skate without consequences.” He paused, thinking hard, then nodded to himself. “This might help too.” So saying, he limped off the stretcher and went to his _nipotes_. Leaning down, he said to them most of what Jules would have said to _him_. “You two have no right going around giving up your lives, trying to save me. Not if you don’t have to.” He paused, looking around at his team. “I’m not the only one who needs you.”

 

_~ Fin_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I do apologize for the short chapter today, but I've decided that epilogues will have their own days to shine, instead of lumping two chapters together on the same day and confusing those readers who jump to the last chapter and thus miss the penultimate chapter.
> 
> I hope, in spite of the sparse comments on the last few chapters, that ya'll enjoyed. Our next story, "Saving Simmons", will kick off October 23rd, 2017.


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